POP MUSIC REVIEW : Price Does Justice to the Classics

“Classic Pop” is a genre not recognized by the music trade, since it requires no charts and generates no best sellers. Yet an artist such as Ruth Price, appearing this evening at Hollywood’s Vine Street Bar & Grill, is a singer to the classic manner born, showing that commercial or not, the idiom has a lasting validity.

This ingratiating gamin of a woman, slight of build, her puckish features framed in a short black hairdo, looks and sounds today much as she did in the days of Shelly’s Manne Hole. If her repertoire has been updated, even the newer sounds--Jobim’s “Happy Madness” and a lovely melody by her ex-husband, Dave Grusin, “When Summer Turns to Snow”--all have that worldly-wise quality of yesteryear both in their lyrics and music.

Price’s voice, heard Thursday at Drake’s in Glendale, is small and compact, her intonation perfect, her love for these songs apparent in the respect she shows for them. If Oscar Levant’s “Blame It on My Youth,” the Jerome Kern-Ira Gershwin “Sure Thing” and Freddy Hollander’s “This is the Moment” are seldom heard today, it is because there are so few Ruth Price’s around with the resourcefulness and vocal sensitivity to do them justice.

Her ailing pianist failed to show, and on very short notice Jeff Colella filled in, reading the parts well and soloing agreeably on an electric keyboard. Price no doubt will be in her glory at Vine Street, where she will appear with the all-star trio of Gerald Wiggins, Andy Simpkins and Roy McCurdy.

The recently instituted music policy at Drake’s will continue with singers Thursday through Saturday from 6 to 10 p.m. and solo piano Monday through Wednesday.